


personne d'autre que toi

by roseisreturning



Series: chick habit [1]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:18:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1518818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseisreturning/pseuds/roseisreturning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The name on your wrist is the third thing you learn to write. That name is Delphine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	personne d'autre que toi

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this text post](http://princessrps.co.vu/post/83379573297/au-everyone-is-born-with-their-soulmates-name).  
>  **warnings:** food, minor injury

The name on your wrist is the third thing you learn to write.

Cosima.

Niehaus.

Delphine.

"Why are Nie- and -phine different?" you ask. "They’re the same sound."

"Different roots," your father says.

You’re not sure what he means by this, but carve the word on the roots of every tree you can. Delphine Delphine Delphine Delphine.

"Delphine," she says, trying to shift the boxes in her arms from in front of her face. "Are you my roommate?"

"Uh, I… don’t know? Sorry, uh, I kinda wanted it to be a surprise, so I never really went to check. I’m Cosima. Is that the name you got?"

"Sorry?"

"Oh, not, like… your  _name_. I thought they sent something out? Um… what is your name? Your… other one.”

She looks embarrassed. It’s not you.

"Not that it’s any of my business," you add.

"Cosima," she says.

"Yeah?"

She settles for dropping the boxes, pulling up her sleeve. Six letters, just darker than the skin around them. C o s i m a.

"Do you know yours?" she asks.

You can feel yourself giving her a look, like,  _do you actually think I have the patience for that?_ before you notice the stack of bracelets on your wrist. Like it was a secret. “Yeah,” you say. “Um, do you wanna know it?”

"No," she says. "It’s better to be a surprise."

"What?" you say. (A girl with a plastic storage bin walks between you. Delphine smiles at her, which makes you think you should smile. You don’t, and end up feeling like an asshole for it.)

"If you were my name, and I were yours, I would want it to happen naturally. And if you were my name, but mine wasn’t yours, I don’t think I’d want to know. Or… if there were other Cosimas. A Cosima who wasn’t you. And she was my name. If this is weird—"

"No! It’s really cool. Like, you don’t know how much of high school I spent looking for a—a girl with my name. Shit. I’m gonna work on that."

She picks up her boxes and enters your dorm.

"See ya!" you say, which is probably the definition of overenthusiasm.

You were pretty sure you were dying to start classes, but all you can think about is the way yourher name sounds in her mouth. Delphine. Delphine what? Delphine Delphine Delphine Delphine. It’s been on your wrist and your lips and the margins of too many torn-out assignments for as long as you can remember and it’s always been enough. It’s not enough anymore.

You’re her soulmate.

Holy shit.

She’s your soulmate.

You always got compliments on your name, the name your parents gave you, but seeing it on her wrist, seeing  _Cosima_  almost invisible on her skin… You got it. Your name was special, somehow.

You’re trying to be cool when you bring the last of your stuff up to your room. Trying to pretend like you could be normal after what she told you.

The bed farther from the door is yours, she says. (She’d noticed your uncomfortable middle-of-room box placement, then. Maybe you were soulmates.)

"So…" you say. You’re sitting cross-legged on the bed she’s given you. She has a copy of  _1984_  open across her bed. “English or French?” you ask. “Uh, not you. I… I can  _kind of_  make out accents. Sorry. Uh, I mean the book?”

"English. I’ve done the French before, but it doesn’t quite have the same… effect?"

"Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know Spanish at the level of a six-year-old native speaker, but… I get what you mean. Uh, are you here for a lit thing or…?"

"No. I’m thinking something in microbiology? Maybe immunology, I think. I haven’t decided."

"Seriously? Dude, do you know how many non-terrifying people are into science? Like three. You, me, and… someone else. I’ll get back to you. But, uh, can I just say, that, like, hypothetically, we would kind of be awesome soulmates."

"We would."

Strictly speaking, you didn’t mean to spend the week before college kissing your roommate. But strictly speaking, you hadn’t really planned on her being Delphine either.

Delphine Delphine Delphine Delphine. Delphine, whose name was as much a part of you as the scar across the back of your hand.

Her last name is Cormier.

You want to say it a thousand times, just on its own, like you had said her name before. You want to draw it out, let it hang in the air,  so everyone knows it.

 _Delphine Cormier_.

You know you’re ruining them, but you never take your bracelets off. You want to. You want to take them off (one by one this time, not in groups like you always did) and never wear them again. You want to let her see, let everyone see her name on your wrist. Let her trace the letters of her name, wrap her hand in yours until your name and her name are together. Delphine Delphine Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima Delphine.

You don’t. Your bracelets dig into her skin whenever you get too close for too long and remember that _you’re going to have to tell her, asshole_.

"I have to go," she says. "I have class."

"First?"

"Mhm."

"Good luck."

"Bye."

"Bye."

You wonder when it stops being too soon to tell her.

You move your bracelets from your left wrist to your right, grab your books, and walk out the door.

You get back before her anyway.

You don’t take your bracelets off one by one. You grab them in groups of fourfivesix and exposed wire scratches at your skin and you want to cover every part of her name.

Delphine Delphine Delphine why couldn’t it be another Delphine?

A Delphine who knew that she was the name on your wrist. A Delphine who wasn’t so much like you.

"Bonsoir, Cosima."

"Hey!" She’s holding one of those plastic bags with the faces.  _Thank You!_ "What’s in there?"

"Takeout," she says. "It’s enough for two?" She looks hopeful, like anyone would reject semi-authentic Chinese food.

"How much?"

"Do you have six?"

"Yeah, uh… Desk. Top drawer."

Delphine Delphine Delphine Delphine. Her name is written on the bag. It’s messy and black and smeared and everything her name shouldn’t be. Those eight letters are goddamn sacred, and there they are in bleeding Sharpie, D e l p h i n e.

She cuts the bag across the l and the p.

You see your name on her wrist. You play with your bracelets. You look at her. She’s cradling the boxes in her arms.

She settles in. You settle in. She unfolds a box. You unfold a box. She does. You do. She eats. You eat.

"Delphine?" you say.

"Mm?"

"We can’t make it a surprise. We… I know." You have three bracelets left. You are sliding them off one by one. "And by saying we’ll let what needs to happen just… be, we’re kind of manipulating the results, right?" You’re not looking at her, just the abandoned bracelets and the name divided at the edge of the bed. Del-phine Del-phine Del-phine Del-phine.

She reaches over the takeout. Her fingertips float above your wrist. “Can I?”

You don’t think. “Yeah, yeah,” you say. Your left hand waves her off. “Right. Um, sorry.” You hold it out for her.

Eight letters, just darker than the skin around them. D e l p h i n e.

"Lucked out, right?"

She nods.

You pack the Chinese into the fridge.

You look at her wrist. Cosima. Delphine. Cosima. Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima Delphine Cosima.


End file.
